Franky the black pug has taken it upon himself to guide his fawn pug friend Elly.  Frank helps Elly on walks, by allowing her to snuggle into him, as he takes the lead. Also Franky will lead Elly to food and water because she isn’t able to find her own way.

The pair, both four years old, are inseparable. Elly sniffs the air to find her friend,then nuzzles into his side to trot along with him.

Elly snuggles into Frank to be guided

They have both been re homed recently by the Newport RSPCA, after a press campaign to re-home them together.

They look great and a real inspiration and we are jealous of the new owners. We offered a home to both of them but we were too late.

It demonstrates, what we feel,  that dogs have empathy to other dogs needs and they feel the pack is of greater importance than themselves.

Black Pug Frank with his Fawn friend Elly

Our Betty Boop

Our Betty Boop

A black pug girl – We think she has a teddy bear face and smells like a teddy that’s been left in the loft and collected dust. Much more independent than Ruby, happy to explore the garden on her own but still needs company like all pugs, especially when she settles down to go to sleep, needs a lap or to use Ruby as a pillow.  Born in November 2011 so not having puppies for another 2 years. She does bite alot and explores everything through her mouth – so we have christened her Betty Bite.  Most pug puppies bite, it’s natural and it’s also natural for you to make a sharp noise if she bites too hard, that tells her to stop, eventually they mouth rather than bite. To enlarge photo click on photo and it will go to a new page and click again and it will enlarge to full size

sleeping on Ruby

Latest one of Ruby looking like a mother

Sharing the cage next to the Aga

Room for a little one!

The expression on the King’s face says it all, he is looking at his pug and thinking my pug is just such great company and I can’t help but smile every time I pick him up. Pugs like being carried, which is a very endearing trait of the pug. You will have to research very hard to find another picture of the King looking so relaxed and happy and all us pug owners know that feeling when we pick up our pugs. King George V is grandfather to our Queen and was the King during World War I, who had a very strict Victorian upbringing but here he lets the stiff upper lip relax.

Below are other celebrities and their pugs. Paris Hilton and her pug, who looks like hes wallowing in the attention.

Johnathan Ross’s Mr Pickles a celebrity in his own right

Another Royalty Duke of Windsor who abdicated the throne so that he could marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, No doubt getting his love for pugs from his father King George V. His pug does look so to type that it could have won crufts

George Clonney He is NOT the most handsome guy in this picture!

Valentino the Italian clothes designer – He even made a film on his pugs that you can see

The most spoilt pugs in the world travelling first class with him everywhere.  Though if you watch the film you can tell the pugs are not at all impressed with the glitz and just want an old sofa to lounge on. This is a photo of  Valenti­no’s five pugs, Mil­ton, Mol­ly, Mar­got, Maude and Mon­ty Mmmmm!!! With a dog walker

One of my favourites Kelly Osbourne from a family of dog lovers has a pug of her own and is often photographed with it going to dinner dates and press engagements. Again pugs love nothing more than the company of their owner and are happy to sit quietly in a restaurant, so these celebrities can get away with taking their pooches with them.

Another Kelly – Kelly Brook and Jessica Alba who is holding a very pampered pug that needs to move more and eat less, like most of us.

We are moving home down the road to Gloucester and I took a few pictures before we left to remind us of our time in the Malverns.  Ruby is not sure about all the activity and work being done in the mid day sun and she refuses to leave the middle of the drive, blocking our way just in case we forget to take her. To enlarge any photo, click on the photo once and it will go to the photo page, once on the photo page click on the photo again and it will enlarge to original size.

We will miss the view from the front door and the old cottage.

We never looked after the garden and its proved to be a haven for wildlife and great hunting for the dogs. Plenty of food from the thistle seeds for the goldfinches in the winter – it is the way forward let nature take its course and enjoy what it produces, beats any neatly lined primroses. The number of species of birds that visited in the winter was over 30 types, including nuthacthers, bramblings and siskins.

Dogs love to explore the undergrowth every day and sniff the trails of midnight visitors. I show a picture here of Tom our dobermann on his daily forage, he is there in the centre of the photo camouflaged. Dexter our puggle can not be seen as he is completely covered in foliage.

We will all miss home and that includes the dogs and the birds, for when the new owners clear the garden for rows of flowers kept pristine with pesticides, they will also like us today ‘flown the nest’.

Here we show all the colours we are aware of, if you have others send a picture.  To enlarge the photo, click on the photo once and it will go to the photo page, once on the photo page click on the photo again and it will enlarge to original size. Not all enlarge but most will.

The most common colours are fawn

Black

Apricot

Apricot Fawn

The rare  colours are silver (some even thought this colour a myth.)

Brindle (this is the colour that causes most controversy whether it is a pure breed pug or not – OF COURSE  it is)

White

And here is a video of a white pug called Marshmellow!

Albino

Chocolate

Pub Pugs

The black boy pug is 11months and the two fawns pugs were 7 and 5 years old. The Lady owner was thinking of a 4th addition after meeting Ruby!  Thanks for introducing yourselves.

Ruby being loved

Ruby being rewarded after her 3 mile hike

First is the video of the multi talented pug, notice he is not sure about the sea saw, this is where pugs think too much rather than just blindly obey.

The Breed Judging for Pugs at DFS Crufts 2010 and the winner was CH YORLANDER RONALDO AT TIDEMILL JW (Dog).
Owners – MR T A & MR N R PURSE & MARSH

2011 Winner Best of Breed

Really needs to get back onto one of the main TV channels, dogs give so much pleasure to so many people. An awareness has built up around poor breeding practices but surely the good vastly out weighs those inhumane breeders. Leadership needs to come from the kennel club to change the breed type to encourage better health and breeding practices. So far the Kennel Club have revised 78 breeds and this year, at Crufts, are introducing vet checks to the most susceptible breeds to health problems. The revisions to the breeds have been slight but the mating with first degree relatives have been banned by the Kennel Club. Difficult problem. as there are so many interested parties who will be holding differing views but it is driven by the desire to produce winning dogs. Change the breed type where inherent health problems are a concerned and this will resolve most issues surrounding pure breeds.

Toy group is on Sunday 13th March together with the best in show in the evening. Televised this year on More 4 (channel 4 sister station) between 7pm and 9pm every night until Sunday.

Toy Category judging Crufts 2011, this is where we get to see the Pug group winner CH TANGETOPPEN`S UNBREAKABLE NEWS. Beating a class of 270 pugs, comes from Finland and is 2½ years old, finally was a group 3 winner in the toy category.

Welcome home

Welcome back to the pack

Greeting
Your pug will want to greet you after absence by licking your face. This is why it is natural for them to jump up at you when greeting you. Basically they are trying to get to your face to lick it, in the same way they greet other dogs in the pack. This is how they re-establish a bond. The more hyper you are when you greet your dog the more hyper they become. It is very easy to stop a dog jumping up at you when they greet you and that is to ignore them or say NO very firmly when they do it. They will quickly learn the new rules on greeting: a great tip if they are hyper on greeting, is to completely ignore them and only after they have settled down do you acknowledge them and stroke or give them a treat, they soon learn to calm down on greeting.

Eyes
Have you noticed when you look at your dog’s eyes you can often guess how they are feeling; sad maybe ill, content, happy pleased, excited, aggressive . Having similar facial expressions to us and importantly dogs use facial expressions to communicate with each other, you can actually read their eyes and facial expressions. So few animals use this form of communication but we and dogs do and this common use of communication is a large reason why we live side by side so well.
I will tell you how important the eyes are. Dogs are the only animal that you can communicate to with your eyes. If you get their attention by calling them and then look straight into their eyes, then look to the side as if you have seen something, like a rabbit, your dog will follow your eyes and look at the same place, without saying anything. Just how cool is that. Now you can understand why we have such a strong bond with dogs. We can talk to them with our eyes!
An aggressive  dog will try to stare you down and returning a stare will be interpreted as a direct challenge. Never look an aggressive dog straight in the eye.

Signals and Commands
Knowing that dogs use body language to communicate between each other, it is easy then to understand that the most effective way to train your dog is by using both voice command and hand signals. Having clear hand signals, like an out stretch palm to signal stay, is the easiest way for your dog to understand what you want. Point down on the floor to signal lie down. In fact pointing is a brilliant way to say what you want. Point to where you want them to walk and they will walk that way.

Hand Signals dogs understand much quicker and easier than voice signals. Best is to voice a command combined with an unqiue hand signal, for that command

Barking
So where does barking come into communication? Well this is another amazing fact and another reason why we love our dogs so much. Dogs very rarely bark in the wild. They bark far more now in human company because they are trying to communicate with you – over many generations they have learnt that humans respond very well to barking. Even more fascinating is that most dogs develop a number of different tonal barks, usual 5 or 6, that we can interpret as having different meanings. Think about  your dog’s bark when he wants to go out, this is one tonal bark. When he can hear a stranger knock at the door, its a different bark. When she is excited because she has found a rabbit hole or her favourite ball its another bark. When your dog wants your attention and saying come  here I have hurt myself, its a yelp of a bark. Think about it next time you hear him bark and how you know what he wants, without seeing him.

Howling
Most dogs howl at musical instruments or a siren of a police car or the phone. This is very instinctive for them to howl. Wolfs and dogs howl in the wild to basically say I am over here; they do it a lot at night, not to lose contact with each other. So when they howl it is responding by saying I am here. Our Tom howls if we leave him at the vets and is especially loud if we leave him at the kennels, for some reason he prefers the vet!

You are over there, I am here

The Play Bow
We have all seen the play bow which is a clear sign to any other dog that their intentions are non aggressive, even when play fighting. What is less known is that puppies have a lot of leeway with the older dogs, they get away with murder, they can bite an alpha males tail, without any reprimand, sleep in the best places and the other dogs act nervously around the puppy’s food, wanting it but an instinct inside is saying do not touch it.

Perfect play bow - no confusion here, what this dog wants

The ground rules only start to be enforced by the older dogs when the puppy is around 12 -14 weeks old. The mum will nip and bark if she sees bad behaviour and the alpha male will growl to ensure the new dog knows its place in the hierarchy of the pact.  This for me is the most natural time to start training your puppy and starting to be firm with them. In the first  few weeks just enjoy your puppy and let them rule the world, don’t worry about all the rules, plenty of time for that in the coming weeks.

Tail Wagging

• Broad tail wagging at a medium rate means she is pleased and happy and wants you to know about it.
• Wagging tail with heckles up. Communicating confused signals, not sure if she should be guarding or making friends, needs you for direction in this situation.
• Fast small side to side wagging  means she is excited.
• Slow wags and the head is held slightly lower than normal, can been seen when a dog meets a new dog but is not to sure how it will go – means she feels insecure or unsure.

]]> http://www.pugs.co.uk/interpreting-your-pugs-body-language-what-is-she-telling-you/feed/ 0 http://www.pugs.co.uk/dogs-can-teach-us-how-to-be-happy/ http://www.pugs.co.uk/dogs-can-teach-us-how-to-be-happy/#comments Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:01:12 +0000 admin http://www.pugs.co.uk/?p=465 Dogs can teach us how to be happy – big statement but have you ever known a happier animal than a dog? and we all strive to be happy, so I believe they can help us understand how to be happy. We just need to know how they think, and what makes them so contented and happy.

It is one of the questions I am most asked ‘what is our dog Dexter, Tom or Ruby  thinking’.  And this leads to deeper questions, what do dogs think about life? and their place in it. I am going to be a bit philosophical in my answers to these questions, as it is only philosophy that can provide insights into dogs thinking similar to how it has done the same for our own thinking.

The first point is dogs do not think  they just Know!  Thinking is overrated.  Dogs just know they are going to live forever and when they was born that was the start of the universe.  Dogs don’t worry about full filling their days with completing so called meaningful tasks and trying to cram in as much as possible. Why when you have all your basic needs met and you are going to live forever, go back to sleep, have a lie in and for our Tom that is 23 hours a day.

Basic Needs

Dogs just know the most important things in life and the rest just doesn’t matter. Number 1. and the most important of all, do I belong to a pack (or in our case a family).
2. Do we have food.  3. Do we have shelter. If you can supply these 3 basic needs for your dog he will be happier than any person you know. Its because they know anything else does not matter. Take the pack (family), the worse punishment you can met out to a dog is to ostracise them from the pack, put them in a room on their own and close the door. If they show bad behaviour this is the quickest way for them to understand that bad behaviour means no pack, your do not belong here; nothing to a dog could be worse. Also once they are part of the pack they look to see who is alpha dog that brings home the bacon and finds the best den, that is you. Most dogs like to relinquish the responsibility for feeding and sheltering the pack and are happy for you to be the alpha dog.  If they feel you do not fill that role and they have to, they get very distressed as they don’t know how to get food and shelter and behave aggressively.

Whats not important

Once all their basic needs are met, dogs feel very contented and happy. They do not compare themselves to the neighbour’s dogs and how big their garden is or the size of their car, they do not care, envy is something they do not feel.  They do not feel the need to get a bigger and better shelter (house) or a more blingy collar or any other status symbols, they are not consumers.  They also do not judge. When you come down in the mornings, they do not care how you look, what you are wearing, they just know you are amazing at what you do. This non judgemental aspect of dogs is why we find them so easy to befriend.

Dogs look to form life long bonds and look to strengthen that bond everyday by how they greet each other with enthusiasm and lick each other on the face.  They are just pleased you are happy to come home to them and are not shy to show it. They are an open book and show their affection everyday.

What we can learn

So what can we learn from them. I propose an awful lot. Don’t compare your lot with someone else, just be happy with what you have, as it meets all your basic needs, stop consuming, stop comparing, start showing your love, keep your family close to you and enjoy your walk everyday, learning new smells, new dogs and their owners. Simple recipe for happiness but why does it have to be complicated, dogs aren’t.